Ketchum is a nearly hundred-year-old public relations firm based out of New York and specializing in corporate communication services, having serviced some of the largest corporations in the US for their advertising needs, no matter the product or practice. From FedEx to Kodak and from Delta Airlines and Wendy’s fast-food to the California Raisins Advisory Board, Ketchum has written the “script” for some of the big guns, but that’s not all. Ketchum has also “fulfilled” contracts for the US federal government totaling $100 million. From the US Army to the Department of Education, Ketchum tells you how to think about something in a different light. They are paid to “reconnect” the public with a new image of something that’s losing ground or recognition, or is getting a very BAD name or reputation. This is public relations at its best, but questions of ethics and health safety are abound. Here’s where it starts. (1)

Public relations firm distorts and “reshapes” reality for 100 years

Over the past nearly 100 years, since 1919, in fact, Ketchum has “sanitized” western medicine and processed foods for positive public perception. They are basically contracted to lie and paid millions because they are so good at it. Recently, in 2003, large contract increases at Ketchum MIRROR the PR spending BOOST for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This means Ketchum’s role with Medicare and Medicaid is much more extensive than the public would ever know.

Ketchum, Inc. and its subsidiary Gplus Europe are employed (paid millions) by the Russian Government to push the benefits of working with Russia as a partner. In fact, Gplus recruits eminent journalists and former EU officials. Now, if you’re pro-Russia and pro-chemical and pro-GMO, would you be pro-USA? Ketchum hires industry spokesmen for pro-Russia campaigns (that was in 2009). In January, 2015, Politico magazine reported that Ketchum took in $60 million from the Kremlin in just 8 years. Now, Russia has completely banned GMO, yet the PR firm representing their government HIGHLY RECOMMENDS them for Americans. This demands deep consideration.

Russia Bans GMO 100% while Ketchum promotes GMO as healthy in America

Russia says American (GMO) food is poisonous to the body, so they’ve completed banned all growing, importing and exporting of genetically modified and mutated food in order to protect the health of their citizens and leaders alike. (3) But in the USA, home of the preventable disease epidemics, it’s a “horse of a different color.” And with the fake universal chronic sick care agenda called the “Affordable Care Act,” we are seeing massive hikes in insurance rates that only cover surgery and chemical therapies like chemotherapy, which only work 2% of the time and only stave off cancer, but don’t cure or prevent it. Most cancer is caused by ingesting chemicals, and chemical pesiticides make up the core ingredients in GMO and conventional staple crops, such as corn, soy, canola, alfalfa, sugar beets, cottonseedand more. Ketch PR firm is a key player in convincing Americans that it is perfectly safe to consume chemical pesticides every meal, every drink, every snack, every beverage. (2)

These frankenfoods (GMOs) have been around for thirty years, but recently a new website gained popularity and public scientist support (GMOAnswers.com) that auspiciously fostered connections between academics at well-known US universities and agri-chemical corporations that manufacture, distribute, advertise and push GMO, genetically modified organisms on Americans.

Most Americans, in fact over 90%, want labels on their food in order to know if the ingredients have been genetically modified or not. This is of great concern to humans that suspect that eating chemical pesticides could cause cancer, Alzheimer’s, lowered immunity, suppressed brain function, disrupted central nervous system functioning, and a host of other chronic-care, yet preventable diseases and disorders.

The website gmoanswers.com is ironically not scientific at all, but rather a response to this valid, monumental concern that health enthusiasts have about this new technology that is experimental and infantile in it’s depth of true research regarding safety, efficacy, and resistance to bugs, weeds and crop disease.

Top questions go unanswered at “GMOAnswers”

The Council for Biotechnology, a biotech industry group openly funded by BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta, hired Ketchum to produce its major PR campaign and website, GMO Answers. It’s a tough job to lie this well, but Ketchum seems to excel at this. Their job was to answer the toughest questions posed by concerned Americans. Why would anyone want to eat a product that contains pesticide on the inside and outside when organic foods have been proven safe for thousands of years? What is the true difference in cost, when true yield is examined, and the healthcare costs for those who suffer from GMO toxicity and exposure to these chemicals on the farms and fields of America? Are we actually using MORE pesticide, since the superbugs and superweeds have become immune or “resistant” to the new super-toxic cocktails of pesticides?

These are the concerns that gmoanswers.com must address in order to quell public fear of their practices, and companies like Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, BASF, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta want to be sure they’ve countered every major concern, so they’ve hired and paid scientists and PR firms to draft up some user-friendly propaganda.

Ketchum supposedly gathered some academics from reknowned universities and public scientists to simply answer some hard line questions about GMOs, but upon closer look, the dirty public relations firm helped Monsanto trade luxurious favors and unrestricted grants to academics and scientists who never actually came up with their own answers, but rather transcribed or “cut and paste” scripted lies onto a website in order to sound more convincing per the industry hacks descriptions of what those corporations want to say they do. A massive hidden inner-network of biotechnology companies had scientists, journalists and academic hacks and shills promote their propaganda as if the science had real research behind it, and real professional analysis and opinions. They basically lied through their teeth about GMO sustainability, pesticide safety and “drought-resistant” crops.

August, 2011: The infamous “Sotto Terra Dinner”

New York City bloggers were invited to dinner events organized by Ketchum and hosted by a top chef and also a food industry analyst. The meals were actually served at a fictitious restaurant called Sotto Terra. The hidden reason for the dinner was to see if the invitees realized the food was cheap ConAgra frozen foods while being filmed on video for reactions. This was all for promotional purposes of course for ConAgra. Many of the guests, who all found out days later, were furious and would not allow Ketchum to use the footage, which was useless because Ketchum never had them sign a release. Sloppy and slick public relations doesn’t get very far in the long haul, but Ketchum was willing to stick their neck out. They were more or less forced to make a public apology to all their guests, who thought they were being served a quality meal instead of cancer-causing processed food.

Ads produced by Ketchum that ran on at least three dozen TV stations violated a federal propaganda ban as the messages really came from the US government! The actors told the viewers how great the prescription drugs were doing for them.

Ketchum enlists up to 100 “independent experts,” “journalists” and “public scientists” who are really corporate-bought posers for GMO

Ketchum’s at it again – – at the center of DIRTY TRICK to fool Americans into ignoring the dangers of GMO. Several biotechnology experts and those with expert opinions of chemical agriculture are crawling out from under rocks to testify to city councils, food regulators and Congress in order to make a fast buck, and it’s all documented in a long string of emails from one scummy end to the other. At the front of the pack is an arrogant but sloppy University of Florida public scientist named Kevin Folta, who has conspired to promote GMO propaganda as his own findings–that language and brain-washing diction that was written by the manufacturers, word-for-word at times. At least 100 paid public officials posed as science experts and promoted one of Ketchum’s core accounts–Monsanto and their core GMO mission, which is the mis-“education” of the masses who are concerned about the toxic effects of biotechnology and genetically modified organisms, including deadly synthetic pesticide combinations, on soil, water, animals and humans consuming them. It’s all revealed in this document cloud being shared by Alternative News worldwide.

Click below to view full collection of documents exposing Ketchum: (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2303691-kevin-folta-uoffloridadocs.html#document/p10/a237532) It also appears that Folta was being prompted about what to say regarding their agenda by Monsanto’s PR firm, Ketchum, which operates the GMO Answers site. In some cases, Ketchum even scripted his “responses” on the website. From Nature.com: …Folta’s e-mails show him to be frequent contributor to GMO Answers. Ketchum employees repeatedly asked him to respond to common questions posed by biotechnology critics. In some cases, they even drafted answers for him. ‘We want your responses to be authentically yours,’ one Ketchum representative wrote in a message on 5 July 2013. ‘Please feel free to edit or draft all-new responses.’ It’s abundantly clear that in this case, a private-sector scientist has completely compromised his credibility by denying that he was a paid propagandist for Monsanto. If it weren’t for the efforts of US Right to Know, we would probably have never learned the truth.

Ketchum PR supports Monsanto, Bayer, BASF, Dupont, Dow and Syngenta

What’s important to understand is that Folta is just one of many sellouts who receive compensation from companies like Monsanto. Of course, the industry and the recipients of such compensation do their best to conceal their ties, but often legislators and regulation agencies depend on the testimony of these scientific prostitutes when determining which policies to implement. Pushing for transparency in these matters is an important part of the fight against Frankenfood companies like Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Bayer, BASF and Syngenta. Organizations such as US Right to Know deserve the public’s wholehearted appreciation and support.

On several occasions over the years, Folta has been known to viciously attack the efforts and character of Vani Hari, the “Food Babe,” who’s tireless research has revealed chemicals and chemical agents in foods that even the “Big Food” companies had to respond to and remove from their meals or products to quell public concerns. Ketchum PR loves “hitmen” and character assassins like Folta, well, until he got caught. Now Ketchum’s top GMO answers guy has been caught red-handed being a complete biotech industry shill, and all of his credibility (and Ketchum’s) is lost, again.

“Recently an activist friend reached out to me in desperation looking for advice, counsel and support. My friend is being attacked, threatened, cyber-bullied and harassed because of her recent critical work in exposing Monsanto’s glyphosate in popular food products that children eat. Unfortunately, I know all too well what’s happening to her because it’s happening to me too. This is why I think it’s absolutely critical for us to stick together and not be afraid to tell the truth. These bullies want to intimidate us into submission. They want us to be too scared to write, investigate and share our findings. So scared, that we quit. Well, we cannot let that happen. I need you to read this shocking new report and tell everyone you know. The non-profit group U.S. Right To Know‘s report “Seedy Business: What Big Food is Hiding with Its Slick PR Campaign on GMOs” couldn’t have come out at a better time! This is an expose (with lots of details, evidence and facts)on the shady public relations tactics that the biotech industry has been employing. After reading their report, everything is starting to make sense to me now. I have personally experienced these tactics and finally can pinpoint what’s happening to me and other activists. The big players in the industry – Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer – are engaging in an extensive public relations, advertising, lobbying and political campaign to make sure that genetically engineered crops (GMOs), and the pesticides they require, continue to proliferate in the U.S. To improve their public image, they are attempting to manipulate everything we see and hear about GMO crops in the media and on TV, the internet and print articles – using propaganda-laden commercials, “mommy-blogger” articles, farmer endorsements, and front group websites. The biotech industry is feeling threatened, and their profits hang in the balance. This is their last stand.” (5)

It’s true; Ketchum, McLeod and Grove also wrote copy for Brown & Williamson’s cigarette advertising campaigns and prepared that copy to convince Americans to smoke! They twisted the thinking of Americans with the old “close by choice” sales trick by speaking of a “safer cigarette.” No commercial cigarettes in America are safe, by any means, but the lingo appeared to trick consumers: “You like to smoke. You enjoy it. But just to be on the safe side, you settle for a low-tar.” (4)

Yes, Ketchum wants the world to forget their DECEPTIVE ADVERTISING from the 1970s that tried to convince America that smoking (Fact brand cigarettes) was good for health and approved by “50 years of scientific tobacco research.” Fifty years? Let us see just ONE of those scientific studies, and we’ll put it on the shelf with the falsified biotech safety studies. All Ketchum cares about is their client’s image and a huge paycheck. They will say, print and publish ANYTHING to sell ANY product or service to ANYONE who will buy it, as long as the dividends keep streaming in. From Big Tobacco lies to Biotech lies, Ketchum spans the years, “sanitizing” lethal chemicals as food and leisure consumption recommendations, and they pay public scientists and officials big money to say what they write, which is a pack of lies, just like on GMOAnswers.com.

Did you know most of the Big Tobacco lies were published in peer review Journals like JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association? Shouldn’t Ketchum take on the responsibility and liability for the people who get cancer from smoking cigarettes and eating pesticide-laden genetically modified food? What about the lead scientists for Adolf Hitler in WWII who just “did what they were told?” Were they innocent? They were convicted of mass-murder at the Nuremberg trials. These are destructive PR campaigns that Ketchum is running and spinning, weaving in more sickness and death for Americans, year after year, decade after decade.

The agenda for Ketchum with regards to selling the public on GMO is clear–convince the unknowing and confused consumers that:

GMOs are safe.

Anyone who disagrees with biotechnology is anti-science.

Biotech companies that produce GMOs care about farmers, families and a sustainable environment.(7)

As part of their “multi-million dollar” campaign for the biotech giants, Ketchum closely monitors Twitter conversations and seeks out negative biotech-related tweets on Twitter and then makes counter arguments. Ketchum is notoriously secretive and targets consumer and food activist groups like the Center for Food Safety and GE Food Alert. Ketchum even hired a private investigation firm (BBI) to spy on activist’s computers and phone records, and even their trash way back in 2000 during Taco Bell’s GMO scandal. We are talking about trash digging, spying propagandists here, not just a business that does PR work to “pay the bills.” (6)

Four key facts to realize about dangers of GMO in the face of Ketchum PR tactics:

GMO crops were engineered with pesticides inside the gene makeup of the seeds so that the plant grows immune to synthetic herbicides and chemical-based insecticides to be spraid on them in the fields.

Similar to the overuse of antibiotics, GMO in crops are creating “super bugs” and “super weeds” that are immune or resistant to heavy doses of poisonous chemicals, but the humans that eat them are not.

Biotechnology is contributing to the “pesticide treadmill” that feeds the growth of unnatural plants and toxifies the environment all around them.

Ketchum allegedly diverted around a quarter million dollars in taxpayer money to a prominent conservative columnist and talk radio host (Armstrong Williams) to relentlessly promote the agenda of “No Child Left Behind” scam the Bush Administration ran. Then Ketchum was hired to push the Medicare Part D drug prescription scam, which added hundreds of billions of dollars to the nation’s debt over the years, according to the 2013 Medicare trustees report, where the CBO described Ketchum’s PR campaign as “covert propaganda” since Ketchum failed to disclose that taxpayers funded their BOGUS video “news” releases. (8)

2010: Greenpeace files lawsuit against Ketchum for hiring spies to steal their documents

Ketchum hired spies to trespass and steal documents from Greenpeace because they were challenging Dupont (Ketchum’s client) on toxic pollution schemes. Ketchum functioned to target Greenpeace for their anti-pollution efforts and gather as much Intel as possible, even using clandestine and illegal methods to do so.

2013: More covert propaganda by Ketchum to give Honduran government a “makeover”

The Honduran government paid Ketchum half a million dollars to give its embattled government a “facelift” after a multimillion-dollar corruption scandal sparked major protests calling for the president to resign. Was this more covert propaganda and corporate espionage committed against the public and for the infamous Bush Administration? If so it’s a violation of U.S. federal law. Ketchum did what they do best and that is provide crisis management lies to salvage and rebuild someone’s or some entities’ reputation, at any cost, with out regards to ethics, morals or legalities. During the huge controversy, Ketchum worked for and reported to President Juan Hernandez’s sister Hilda Hernandez, who served as Honduras’ minister of strategy communications. Hernandez’s National Party siphoned nearly $100 million from their country’s social security institute to fund their 2013 election campaign, which they won. (9)(11)

U.S. Right to Know group leader Gary Ruskin has this to say about GMOAnswers.com:

“We taxpayers deserve to know the details about when our taxpayer-paid employees front for private corporations and their slick PR firms,” Ruskin said. “This is especially true when they do work for unsavory entities such as Ketchum, which has been implicated in espionage against nonprofit organizations.” (10)

The U.S. Right to Know is a nonprofit organization working to expose what the Big Food industries do NOT want the public to know. USRTK stands up for the right to know what is in our food and how it affects our health. USRTK exposes politics of the marketplace where big food companies, biotechnology firms and shady PR firms hide the immense dangers of GMO in their quest for profits and control of the worlds seeds.